Don't any of you skip to the end. The only thing I've got going for me is suspense, and if you read ahead, then I'm left with nothing but cheap humor and a quickly unravelling plotline.

Also, special thanks to kckaye, whose incredibly creative idea made the ending of this chapter possible.

001. –

Her heart feels like a cluster of iron and icicles lodged in the middle of her chest.

"No."

Such a silly response, so ambiguous, but what else is she supposed to say? What else can she say?

With numb, wobbling ankles, she stumbles away from him at the window, her body momentarily detached from her conscious. But before she can completely lose her balance, her palms grasp at the lip of the wooden table behind her; clinging on as tightly as if the object was her final lifeline, she fights to steady herself.

"Katniss, I'm sorry." His voice breaks as he says her name, and so does she. She blinks away the cloudy film covering her eyes to see him turning around in his wheelchair, looking up to her with his apologetic, puppy-eyed blue gaze.

Automatically, her teeth clench. "We haven't lost this. You haven't lost this." She's trembling, and her words taste like rotten oranges. "You can't give up, Peeta."

"They'd have to cut off most of my leg, and even then… look, it wouldn't do anything but maybe delay the inevitable. Or make it worse."

She wants to wring her own neck. Or throw some pottery against the door. Or slam her face into a brick wall. Anything. Anything that would make her momentarily forget that she's going to lose her sunshine boy.

Or, make her forget her anger. Rage bubbles up in her throat along with the bile, and she has to dig her nails into the veneer of the table to keep herself from flying off the deep end.

"You should've done that when you were sixteen," she hisses, knowing that she shouldn't be exacting her fury on him, but she can't stop herself. "You had a chance, Peeta! None of this would be happening if—"

"Katniss, I would've gotten my leg amputated if I'd known better," he pleads, his voice sickeningly calm. "But I didn't. I had no idea. And I'm sorry."

He reaches out toward her, his hand straining for hers, or her hip, or something to remind her that he's still here, but she jumps out of the way, her fingers balled into fists at her sides. She can feel her nails angrily digging crescents into the flesh of her palms.

"Don't. You. Touch. Me," she snarls.

It's the first time she's ever become so irreversibly angry at him. She wills herself to stop, but the emotions hijack her, drowning her in a flame she can't begin to douse.

"Peeta Mellark, I have been fighting by your side for almost a decade now. I am not going to let you give up on this. On us."

"I'm not trying to give up, Katniss—"

"You can't leave me!" Every word is raw, sharp, relentless. "You can't do this! Not now, especially not now, not…" She's shaking too hard, like someone's replaced her spine with an electrical toothbrush. "We're married, Peeta! Maybe, maybe I could've done it, maybe I could've been strong enough when I was only seventeen, but I'm twenty-two now, Peeta! I—I… I'm so hopelessly in love with you, and I—I can't…"

Even in the gloom, she can see him blinking in surprise, a glossy sheen coating his irises. But he doesn't even attempt to defend himself. He just sits there, skin paling, eyes clouding.

For the first time, she's rendered the boy with the silver tongue speechless.

And she can't stop herself. Oh, god, she wants to hold herself back, but it's far too late.

"You've dragged me to hell and back with this bucket list, Peeta. I've given up my entire goddamn life for you, for this list, and you can't just let it all go and leave me, alone, because I—I tied myself to you, dammit! I've been by your side for too long and now, you have to know that I'll be nothing without you!" Her fingers push against her forehead hard enough to make her wonder if she'll leave dents. "Fuck, I know it's unhealthy, and I—I never wanted it to escalate to this, but I need you, Peeta! You fucking made me need you!"

"I didn't want it to be like that," he whimpers, his body trembling across from hers. His skin is stonewashed, drained of all color. "I love you, Katniss, and I never meant to hurt you."

She feels as if her flesh has been submerged in a pool of acid.

"Then why are you doing this to me?" she screeches. "Giving up? People love you, Peeta, and you're—"

"I'm what? Letting them down? By dying?" His fingertips dig into his temples, his eyelids fluttering dazedly.

"By not even trying to live anymore! You've thrown in the fucking towel without even thinking about how anyone else would fee—"

"I have held on every damn day because of you, Katniss," he chokes out. "Every single time I was sitting in a hospital chair as they pumped those goddamn drugs into me, wishing I could just finally let go, I kept remembering you and how I had to fight for you. You. I have done everything because of you, Katniss, so please don't… don't t-try to…" He's blinking now, his lips parting wider as he gulps in a massive pocket of air. "Don't tell m-me that…"

"Peeta?"

His cloudy eyes are losing their focus, and only now does she finally register how pale he's really become.

Too pale.

No.

"Peeta?" she shrieks again, lunging forward to grasp his shoulders as he slumps in his wheelchair.

Everything's white. Too white. Too sterile. The sickly scent of antiseptic fills her lungs, making her want to vomit.

"I've killed him," she whispers for what must be the tenth time in the past hour as she rocks back and forth in one of the blue, plastic hospital chairs.

Through the numbness, she can almost feel the warmth of Mr. Mellark's hand as he rests it on her shoulder. "You didn't kill him, Katniss."

"I was yelling at him." Her voice feels so disconnected from the rest of her, as if the sound is coming to her through a telephone line. "I was so… so stupid. I said so many things I didn't mean."

"Well, when he wakes up, you'll get to tell him that."

She turns to look at him, his soft smile just calming enough to remind her to breathe. His eyes are sad – blue eyes, just like Peeta's – but sympathetic, and she wonders how on earth this man could pity her when she singlehandedly sent his son to the hospital.

"I'm the worst wife on the face of the planet."

"I can assure you, you're not," he promises, and the memory of Peeta's mother momentarily flits back through her head. But then he continues, "Marriages are full of stupid arguments and things that shouldn't have been said, but were. You're a human being, Katniss."

"An awful one," she grumbles.

"A stressed one." His eyes deepen. "Cancer's ugly, and unfair, and its effects can bring out the worst in people. If I were in your shoes, I'm sure I wouldn't have acted much differently."

However genuine, his words still leave a gaping pit burrowed at the base of her stomach. Her head falls in her hands. "What if I don't get to tell him that I'm sorry?"

"You will, Katniss."

But how can he know that? Since the moment he passed out, Peeta's been irreversibly unconscious. She can still feel the ghost of his body sagging against hers as she desperately tried to revive him while simultaneously calling 911, and also the clammy touch of his limp hand as she rode with him in the ambulance.

The past hour has to have been the most terrifying period of time in her entire life.

She lets an uncomfortable silence float around them for a short while before it's interrupted by the menacing click of heels against the tiling. She lifts her head to see a nurse standing before them, clutching a clipboard to her torso.

"Peeta Mellark's family?"

Katniss's heart slams into her ribs hard enough to bruise. She pops out of her seat. "I'm his wife. Is he… is he okay?"

The nurse – a round-ish woman with soft, brown eyes – smiles gently at them. "He's awake, if you'd like to see him."

Thank God.

Relief drowns her, and gravity escapes her; she doesn't stick around to hear what the nurse has to say about Peeta's condition, because she's hurrying down the hall, toward the room they took him into what feels like centuries ago.

When she tears through the entryway, she pauses momentarily in the threshold as she sees him, her lungs constricting. There lays her husband, eyes pinned on the ceiling, the hospital gown unkindly accentuating the sharp angles of his bones. He's lost so much weight since he started treatment, his skin completely void of the glow he once had. Even the golden eyelashes that used to captivate her are gone.

But once he hears her enter, and his head tilts slightly to the side to gage her, an impossibly soft smile spreads over his chapped lips, and she remembers, this is Peeta. Regardless of how frail he's become, he's still her husband, still her best friend, still her sunshine. He may have gone behind a cloud, but he's still there, finding every possible cavity to poke through and shower her with his light.

"Katniss." His voice is brittle, wispy, but she can still hear the affection as he says her name, and it tears her to shreds.

She strides over to his side, collapsing into the chair just off the edge of his mattress. Her hand finds his, and she presses her forehead against it, trembling with sobs.

"I'm so sorry, Peeta," she whimpers against his skin. "I didn't mean it."

His free hand snakes beneath her face, gently lifting her chin up so she can look at him. Everlasting blue meets shimmering grey, and she forces herself to squeeze his palm tighter to keep herself from bursting into tears all over again.

"You have no reason to be sorry," he says suddenly, his words cracking.

"But I said so many things. So many bad—"

His voice is shaking. "Katniss, you were right. I—I roped you into all this stuff when I should've just let you go years ago."

A freight train of morbid shock flattens her. "What?"

"You deserved to live your own life, not be bogged down by someone who you're forced to watch wither away."

"Don't say that." She tries to reach up to rest her hand on his cheek, but he just flinches away.

"Katniss, please. Don't… don't pretend that it's okay. It's not. You never deserved any of this. I—I never deserved you."

How could he say that? He was the one to get the short end of the stick time and time again – first, with the cancer, and then with her, and then with sickness all over again – and if anyone had won the destiny-driven jackpot, it was her. She'd been too angry before to remember how much of a blessing every second with Peeta is to her, but she's not so ignorant now.

"You deserved someone better," she whispers back, ignoring his request and edging up to the bed, propping herself up on the side so she can cup his cheek.

Despite the hesitancy in his eyes, naturally, he leans into her hand. "Never."

"You did, Peeta. You still do. Someone who's more than your best friend, and who you love with your whole heart just because you want to, and not because she's there, and—"

Unpleasantly cool tendrils of air wrap around her palm as he draws away from her, eyes chaotic. "What are you talking about?"

"The bucket list, Peeta." The reason we're here. "It's why you chose me. Why we… we got married."

In response, he lets out a dark chuckle, one that makes her shiver.

"You think I married you because of a stupid sheet of paper?"

All she can do is stare at him, blinking.

"Katniss, I married you because you're the love of my life, and I didn't want to take my feelings for you to the grave. I married you because you're that person, the one I've 'loved with my whole heart.' That was you. That is you. It's always been and will always be you, Katniss."

And then he curls his finger under her chin, leaning in to slant his mouth over hers, every last ounce of his body's energy channeled to his lips. Even though he's got tubes running in and out of him, and his muscles have deteriorated, he still kisses her like he did that summer they went to Miami, when it was just them and the sand and the ocean spray. His lips bring her back through each year of her life with him, in which she held him, laughed with him, cried with him, made love with him, hid up in their treehouse with him, spent impossibly late nights on the phone with him, and fell in love with him, over and over and over.

She's had such a wonderful life at his side. Too short, but how sickeningly brief the stretch was doesn't retract from how beautiful it'd been.

She doesn't understand why he's pulling away from her until his thumbs reach up to wipe the wetness from her cheeks.

"Katniss, please, don't cry."

But his words have the opposite of their desired effect, and her lungs wring with sobs as she leans her forehead against his, pathetically trying to hold herself together.

"I wanted more time with you," she chokes out, and he cups her cheeks, holding her against him.

"So did I."

Careful not to shatter his fragile bones, she coils her arms around his shoulders and brings her body flat against his, and the feel of his heartbeat – still strong, still fighting – makes her own heart flutter.

And it reminds her that there's got to be a way. With Peeta, there's always a way.

"Please, get the surgery," she whimpers to his shoulder, her words muffled against his hospital gown. Her tears are probably soaking the fabric, but oh well. She's long past concerning herself with shame.

She feels him sigh against her, but his once-strong hands move to rub her back comfortingly, his compromise already palpable in his actions before she hears it in his words.

"I don't want you to get your hopes up."

"It's better than having no hope at all."

The warm fluttering of lips against her neck makes her shiver, and she draws away, curling her palm against his jaw. Even in his decline, he's still the most beautiful boy on the planet to her. He will always be.

And as they sit there together, twisted up on a scratchy hospital bed, Katniss feels all the sunlight that'd been hidden for months begin to flow back through her veins as the boy with the bread gives her a soft, adoring smile of surrender.

"Alright. For you."

But her hope begins to dwindle the moment he's released from the hospital and into her care. He's constantly sleeping, and when he's not his exhaustion limits his ability to even hold a basic conversation. Each day, he fades more and more, like week-old sidewalk chalk scribbled on the pavement.

The operation can't come soon enough. The night beforehand, she holds him in their bed, not permitting her body to tremble out of the certitude that she'll shatter him with even the slightest movement. He won't make it much longer, which is something they're too afraid to admit but both know to be true.

They're too late, she fears.

It'll take a miracle, the voice in her head murmurs as she uselessly tries to drift asleep.

The morning of the surgery, Katniss sits in that nauseatingly sanitized waiting room with her mind tangling itself into knots and her heartbeat going apeshit between her ribs.

He never told her what the last item on his bucket list was. She wonders if it'd been something involving children, or opening his own bakery... She prays he'll make it through the operation so that she can ask him, and maybe scramble to help him reach it, if things don't go well. Peeta is very weak, and the surgery might be too much for his body to handle, the doctors had told them. But he'd persisted, for her, and when she whispered right before they took him away that she was afraid, he planted a velvet-soft kiss to her forehead and told her: "Don't be. Just have hope, love. It's the only thing stronger than fear."

Which is easier said than done, of course. Laying down her dread and replacing it with undiluted optimism isn't exactly in her wiring, but as she sits there, she does her best. It's what he'd want from her, anyway. And if he's putting himself through this operation for her, she can surely do that for him.

In the meantime, she ventures to distract herself with catching up on all the work she's been missing lately, but her attention span is too frazzled. So, instead, she preoccupies her thoughts by making lists.

What I can do to help Peeta while he's recovering:

1. Be sure he takes his medication every day

2. Learn how to make actually edible meals so he won't have to

3. Decorate his wheelchair with a Batman cape to make him feel better when he uses it

4. Rent all of the Star Wars movies from the local video store to watch with him

5. Buy him the (ridiculously expensive) oil paints he's been wanting

6. Remember to kiss him all the damn time so that he's constantly reminded of how wonderful you think he is

7. Experiment with the concept of a striptease (if he's up for that, of course)

8. Check out every last cookbook from the library to completely drown him in recipes

9. Have a constant supply of tea on-hand, no sugar

10. Sing him songs

11. Sing him lots and lots and lots of songs. Since he loves that.

Her throat tightens, making it difficult for her to swallow, and it feels like someone's squirted jalapeño juice in her eyes. Fuck. She promised him she'd be strong for him, that she wouldn't let the fear in, but all she can think about is how she'll never forgive herself for making this list if…

She shakes her head and flips over the crumpled-up napkin she's been writing on, deciding to make a second list, one that'll hopefully calm the chaos in her brain.

Things I know:

1. My name is Katniss Everdeen Mellark

2. I'm from Panem, Pennsylvania

3. I love Peeta Mellark unconditionally

4. My favorite color is green

5. Prim's studying at Johns Hopkins because she's crazy-smart and will always make me proud of her

6. My father loved me when he was alive

7. I can be strong

8. Peeta always double-knots his shoelaces

9. I have an actual job with a steady source of income, the only downside being my boss, who hates the general existence of mankind more than Voldemort hates Harry

10. My friends will support me when I need them

11. Mr. Mellark and Hans often forget I'm not biologically their family

12. I'll never be able to sleep with the window closed, ever again

13. The orange of a sunset makes me smile

14. I have a pair of blue eyes engraved in the backs of mine

15. He tastes like cinnamon and honey

16. He is the sun

17. And the stars

18. And the sky

19. I love him

20. I will always love him

21. He has to be okay

She wads up the napkin and stuffs it in her purse before allowing her face to fall in her hands.

There's no way for her to distract herself. Everything points to him, and will always come back to him, regardless of where she starts.

And then she sighs, taking out the napkin and smoothing it over her thigh. Maybe she should stop trying to distract herself, instead looking her problem straight in the eye. That may be the best way to manage it.

Reasons to trust that Peeta will be okay:

1. He's so mentally strong.

2. He loves me, and that's got to count for something.

3. He'll fight for me, because he's always fought for me:

- He fought for my life by giving me that bread

- He fought for my friendship by always letting me into his room, and into his bed, when I needed comfort

- He fought for my love by kissing me for the first time up in our treehouse

- He fought for me by enduring treatment, however taxing, so that he'd still be there for me as long as possible

- He fo

"Mrs. Mellark?"

Her head snaps up to see a doctor looming over her, his surgical mask lowered down past his chin, his green scrubs slightly smeared with…

Oh god.

Her stomach curdles.

"Is he alright?"

She's been swamped with nightmares lately, so even her unconscious self is surprised when she stumbles across this anomaly.

It begins as a pleasant dream. She's with Peeta in the bakery, carrying out the undemanding tasks, like arranging the croissants on the platter for the display, or wiping the stray flour from the countertop with a wet dishrag.

He walks behind her, limping slightly on his prosthetic, and his fingers brush over the small of her back. She turns, catching his hand just as it trails away from her skin, and pulls him back to her.

"You know, we never finished up your bucket list," she whispers, tilting her head up, her lips just inches from his. Warmth radiates from his skin, the fronds of heat curling around her and drawing her in.

He indulges her with his signature chuckle, the one she wishes she could replay for hours, or bathe in, as his arms latch around her waist. His palm moves to caress her slightly-swollen belly, and her unborn child seems to sense its father, because something inside her shifts.

"No, I guess you're right. We didn't finish that list. But—" His thumb strokes the arc of her stomach—"we're almost there."

His voice makes color burst behind her lids, and she turns her head to greet the wall of shimmering blue focused only on her. She leans up, her lips just ghosting over his when suddenly she's grasping at air, stumbling forward and barely catching herself on the edge of the counter. Her eyes are wide in shock and confusion, but all that lies before her is empty space. Reaching down to her belly, she tries to find the spot that he'd just been touching.

Instead, she finds her stomach to be completely flat.

No.

No, no.

She cries out for him, sure this must be a mistake. He was there, and so was the baby… she can't just lose them both, not like this…

"Katniss?"

It's his voice, but the sound is stifled, ethereal, faded around the edges, and she squirms to find the source, but it's too far-off. She screams out for him again.

And then: "Katniss, I'm here, it's okay—it's alright, I'm here…"

"Peeta?"

"Shh, you're alright. It's just a dream, it's just a dream."

A soft kiss is pressed to the heated skin of her neck, and gentle arms wrap around her torso. Then they're flipping her around, turning her to face the source, and through the gloom and the film of tears in her eyes, a piercing azure glimmers just inches from her face.

"P-Peeta?"

His hands are on her face, pushing away the sweaty strands of hair plastered to her skin, replacing them with quick, soothing kisses. "You're alright, Katniss."

But the image of an empty space where he should've been has burned itself into her corneas, the thought cutting into her being like shards of broken glass; she wants to tell him of it, but she can hardly choke out the words. "I—I was dreaming about you, and you… you were gone, Peeta, you… you just disappeared—"

"I'm not going anywhere," he promises, his tone lulling the fear from her chest, and her breaths begin to slow as she tries to relax herself against him. Her legs tangle around his thighs, her calves pressing together as they occupy the space where his left leg should rest, but has been severed a few inches above the knee. He flinches a little as she unintentionally brushes her quadricep against the wound; even though it's been three months since the operation, the flesh there is still tender, especially when he's left it unwrapped for bed.

The palms of his hands massage circles over her bare back, every touch of his skin sending a flurry of tingles down her spine. He's been regaining more and more of his strength every day, salvaging one-by-one the tiny pieces of himself that the cancer had thrown to the wind. It'll be a while before his health and his vitality are entirely restored, but as she reaches up to feel the light dusting of blonde hair over his scalp, and searches his eyes to see the moonlight, which is streaming from the open window, illuminate the gold of his thickening eyelashes… she won't allow how far they've come to sneak past her unnoticed.

The doctors told them that his survival was a miracle. That his life with her is a blessing. She refuses to take any second of it for granted. Since the moment he awoke from the surgery, and they shared the first kiss of his new life, tears streaming like waterfalls down their cheeks and every muscle in their bodies quivering with relief, she's decided to treasure every single breath he takes.

And when his lips latch onto the aching flesh of her neck, gently suckling the pulse point below her earlobe and making a gasp spill from her mouth, she hears his last words echoing in the front of her mind.

I'm not going anywhere.

The most beautiful reality she's ever known.

He refuses to show her the bucket list.

Even though it's been a year since he officially went into remission, the smug little jerk still keeps it hidden from her.

"It's because we haven't finished it yet," he'll always say, with a teasing wink. One that makes her want to punch the smirk right from his handsome face.

"Well, maybe if you showed it to me, then we could wrap it up."

He'll bite his lip, his eyes sparkling with enough mischief that she wonders if he's actually plotting the apocalypse.

"Over my dead body."

She doesn't think that's funny. He thinks it's fucking hilarious.

But what he doesn't think is hilarious is when she, in revenge, steals one of his crutches from him and hides it somewhere in the depths of their apartment.

And, naturally, Peeta retaliates by baking a batch of cupcakes the next day and putting three times as much salt as necessary in one of the tins, courteously bestowing the select pastry on her and taking far too much pleasure in her revolted reaction.

Ah, marriage.

(At least he'll apologize and give her a different cupcake – one that has the right salt-to-batter ratio – which has I love you piped over the frosting in his beautiful script.)

But because he repeatedly denies her request to finally see his bucket list – does he even still have the thing? Maybe he lost it years ago – he goes along with her request to, instead, write a collection of other lists. Ones meant just for them.

Lists of recipes they need to try, to fill their empty nights with an activity that involves way too much food, baking in their underwear, and smearing batter all over each other's bare skin.

Lists of cities they need to visit, to give them something to look forward to.

Lists of songs that remind them of each other, to help them saturate the silence whenever they're alone.

Lists of places they need to make love in, to spice up their already-wonderful sex life. (Thanks to Peeta, that one gets way too out of hand.)

Lists of reasons why they love each other, to give them hope on their worst days.

Lists of things that they find annoying about each other, to give them something to laugh about on their best days.

And then, eventually, lists of names. Boy's and girl's names.

"I like Daisy," she says. "For a girl, I mean."

He chuckles, shaking his head. "You and your plant-inspired names."

"At least I didn't suggest Tesla. Which is a car make, Peeta."

"We could call her Tess!" He tries to cloak his smile as he leans in, sloppily kissing her cheek as his thumb moves to brush over the curve of her stomach.

Another miracle.

She'd push him off, but she loves the way he's always so eager to touch her belly, determined to feel the first time their baby kicks. So, instead, she sets her jaw tightly and leans back into the cushions of the sofa. "That's assuming it's a girl."

"She is going to be a girl. Call it a father's intuition." He leans down, nuzzling his nose over the stretching fabric of her shirt. "Aren't you, little Tess?"

"Anything but Tesla," Katniss moans.

"Fine." He looks up to her, a dangerous glint in the stunning blue that she prays her child will be gifted with. (Truth be told, the more the baby looks like Peeta, the happier she'll be.) "How about we name her Pumpernickel?"

Katniss fists her hands in one of the throw pillows at the end of the sofa, raising it to smack Peeta across the face. "Remind me why I let you father my child."

"I think it has to do with a crazy little thing called love."

She rolls her eyes. "Oh, yeah. That."

When he slants his lips over hers, she doesn't even think to reject him; even after all these years, his kisses still electrify her as much as they first had. She doesn't suppose they'll ever stop.

Later that night, after they've taken a bath and slipped into their pajamas, Katniss finishes up the laundry while Peeta reclines in their bed, absorbed in the fifth parenting book he's embarked on since they figured out she was pregnant three months ago. She's already sorted Peeta's socks, which is always a far more laborious task than sorting undergarments should be, since her husband only wears one sock half the time – because of his prosthetic, the shoes he's wearing dictate whether or not he wears both of them. It'd make her life easier if the man just put both socks in the laundry anyway (but since when do husbands make their wife's lives easier?), but instead, he always leaves the unused one in the drawer, and she has to fish around to find it to pair it up with its twin.

Unfortunately, after putting most of them away, she finds a lone sock whose mate isn't at the top of the drawer, and she shoves her hand into the sea of undergarments, upturning every scrap of fabric like she's plowing a damn field.

"You make my life impossible," she jokes as she continues to sift through the abyss.

She hears him chuckle absently, obviously too enraptured by the miracles of child-bearing to actually listen to her – damn Peeta Mellark for wanting to be a dedicated father – but after a few seconds she hears him suck in a shallow gasp.

"Katniss—"

She hears him call her name in alarm just as her fingertips graze over something that, very clearly, isn't fabric. Frowning, she slowly plucks it from his drawer.

It's a folded sheet of paper.

"Peeta, what's th—"

Oh.

She doesn't need to ask, and he doesn't need to answer, for her to realize what it is. The yellowing tinge to the once-white paper, the slightly creased edges, and the fact that it was hidden at the bottom of his sock drawer gives it all away.

Carefully bringing herself to a stance, she clutches it in between her fingertips, her heartbeat thudding in her chest as wildly as a provoked bull.

She turns to face him and finds him suddenly pale, a look of sheer panic brimming from his features as he watches her, completely stilled on the bedspread. The book falls to his lap.

"I can't believe you found it," he says dazedly, his voice quiet.

"I can't believe I did your laundry for five whole years and never managed to come across it before." Her thumb toys with one of the crinkled corners. God, she's aching to unfold it. She's wanted to know its contents for over a decade now. "I don't know what to do."

"You could… you could just put it down and pretend you never saw it," he suggests, a guilty smile on his face.

His expression sends suspicion curling relentlessly through her blood. Or maybe it's just the pregnancy hormones. "Why are you so afraid of what's in it? Peeta, I already know what nine of the ten things are. The tenth can't be that bad."

His expression doesn't shift, not by even a single muscle.

What could it be?

"I mean… if it's some BDSM shit, I won't be that—"

"God, no." His nose crinkles. "I was sixteen. I hadn't even kissed a girl at that point – whips and chains weren't exactly in my line of vision."

"Does it, uh… does it have to do with murder?"

He looks at her as if she's just asked him why a photocopier is called a photocopier.

"Well… can I open it?" She knows she doesn't have to ask for permission – she's the one carrying his child, for crying out loud, so if anyone has leverage, it's her – but she still wants to. She loves him, and if it bothers him that much, she'd rather force herself to swallow her own curiosity than potentially upset him.

A long pause settles between them before he sighs, looking down at the bedspread warily. "Yeah, sure."

Raw voltage torrents through every synapse in her body as she pulls at the corners, slowly unfolding the paper. It crackles in her hands from being untouched for so long; she treats it like it's made of dragonfly wings, afraid it'll shatter to dust if she pinches too hard.

As she opens it, the sight of Peeta's elegant but boyish sixteen-year-old script triggers a soft grin to pull at her lips. She slowly pads up to the bed, crawling across the mattress to her husband, who welcomes her guardedly into his side.

She feels his arm curling around her, tucking her against him, as her eyes drink in the faded, smudged lettering.

10. Go to prom.

She can still hear the music, ghosting through her head, and how he'd told her she was the most beautiful girl on that dancefloor.

9. Build a treehouse.

How he'd gotten jealous of Hans. She should've known why, then. It took her three years too long.

8. Share a dinner by candlelight.

How he'd kissed her for that first time. She should've known it was more than just a misguided gesture, then, too.

7. Have a cupcake war.

Oh, god, the Batman boxers.

6. Sleep under the stars.

How he'd brought her to life with his fingers, electrifying her in a way she'd never known before.

5. Spend an entire day building blanket forts, watching Disney films and baking brownies.

How he'd made love to her, how he'd been her first. And her only. She could never want anyone else, and even then, she'd known that to be true.

See the ocean.

She could still taste the air, the salty tang of his skin. How easy things had been, then, before the cancer came back.

3. Watch the sunset from a mountaintop.

She'd fucked that up so badly. But he still wanted her, somehow, a miracle he continues to prove to her every day.

2. Get married.

The best decision she's ever made, that nothing – no fight, no conflict, no overly-salted cupcakes – could ever make her regret.

As her eyes drift downward, finally unfolding Peeta's final secret, she feels his fingertips ghost over her hipbone, his lips pressing adoringly against her temple. And as the words meld into her conscience, she feels her heart grow to a thousand times its size, her eyes stinging as she clamps her lips together.

Do it all, everything in between, and everything afterward, with Katniss Everdeen.

His lips brush against her ear.

"It's you. It was always you. And it will always, always, be you, Katniss."

She should've known. But at last, after over ten years, the self-conscious voice jabbering away in the back of her head which has always contended that Peeta never really loved her like that, that she had reason to doubt his feelings for her… it finally, finally, goes quiet.

Because it's always been, and always be, them. Together.

For the first time, she feels their unborn daughter stir.

Look out for a potential epilogue, and possibly that wedding one-shot I mentioned last chapter. I don't think I'm emotionally ready to leave this universe yet.

In the meantime, I'll be lurking on Tumblr (find me at the-peeta-pocket). I'm the quickest at responding to messages/asks there, but my inbox on this site is also open. I'll try to answer your reviews, too, but just beware, I'm so awful with that.

Anyhow, I hope this ending was close to what you're looking for! Thanks to all of you who powered through and stuck with this story regardless of how emotionally distressing it was. As my man Kevin Durant once said: You the real MVP.